We are a Silicon Valley wealth management and venture capital firm, and we write about emergent shifts in technology that could have an impact on wealth creation & could generate new opportunities for entrepreneurs. Sanjeev Sardana launched BluePointe Capital Management in 2005 after serving as a director in the private banking division of Credit Suisse. Sandeep Sardana launched BluePointe Ventures in 2014 after years of managing an Angel Investment Group and technology portfolios at iPass and frog design. The two host various events in Silicon Valley such as CIO Panel Events and Angel Investment Forums to connect investors with entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs to potential customers.

A Venture Capitalist Weighs on the Next Phase of Tech Innovation

Recently, I had the rare opportunity, and honor, to speak with Promod Haque, managing partner of Norwest Venture Partners (NVP), one of Silicon Valley’s pre eminent venture capital firms. Around the Valley, Promod is known as “The Man with the Midas Touch.”

Because Norwest invests in early stage startups as well as growth oriented companies, I asked for his observations regarding emerging technology trends. I was also curious about how he views the current roles of “angels” and “super angels.”

Having a one-on-one dialogue with someone who lives on technology’s cutting edge was a thrill. Below are excerpts from our very interesting conversation.

Sanjeev: Where do you see innovation occurring today?

Promod: We see significant changes in a number of enterprise technologies such as cloud infrastructure, mobile, storage, software-defined networking and security. Innovative startup companies are exploiting massively disruptive forces now changing the face of enterprise technology. At the same time, enterprise companies that are either growing rapidly or restructuring their operations also provide significant opportunities in key sectors, particularly cloud computing and Big Data analytics.

IT’s role is constantly evolving as employees and customers armed with mobile devices have created a BYOD (bring your own device) culture. We’re seeing this massive need in the marketplace being met firsthand through one of our portfolio companies, MobileIron, a leader in the mobile enterprise management space. More than 3,000 global organizations have turned to MobileIron to secure and manage their mobile apps, docs and devices.

Another interesting trend is that the extended enterprise- with its mobility, BYOD, virtualization and cloud-based services and outsourcing—is dealing with much new vulnerability. Today’s advanced attacks by cyber criminals are bypassing traditional security controls and persisting undetected in systems for extended periods of time. We’re seeing tremendous innovation in this area from FireEye, whose New Advanced Threat Protection technology has risen to meet the needs of these increased challenges by detecting and blocking the most complex threats that exist today.

Sanjeev: What sectors have you focused on in last 6 months? 12 months?

Promod: Actually, it has been the same for both periods. It’s the enterprise. We’ve been making enterprise investments in technologies that are infrastructure or applications-centric for quite some time. We’re also intrigued with the area of Big Data. We’ve been funding companies in this sector, both in infrastructure and analytics.

For example, in the infrastructure space, we have a company called Hadapt, which has developed the industry’s only Big Data analytic platform natively integration SQL with Apache Hadoop. The unification of these traditionally segregated platforms enables customers to analyze all of their data (structured, semi-structured and unstructured) in a single platform.

We’ve also invested in Insights One, a company focused on machine learning predictive analytics based on Big Data, both structured and unstructured.

Sanjeev: Why is there renewed interest in the enterprise space now?

Promod: For the past five years, we’ve seen a lot of innovation around social media. New enterprise-level technology has not been making headlines. However, a couple of things have happened to change that. First, we’ve seen an evolution in the sheer amount of data to which we have access. Big Data is comprised of structured data as we traditionally think of it—data from a database or spreadsheet. But it also includes another category of data—“unstructured” data—this is not housed in a database but instead is ubiquitous free-form text, such as email messages, blogs, tweets and web pages. A huge amount of company information is unstructured.

Growing and nurturing Big Data has been happening in the labs of very large companies—we call them the Big 10—the Facebooks, Googles and Amazons of the world. These companies have been able to improve their decision-making based on the infrastructure technology and analytics-related software they have been developing.

The renewed focus on enterprise technology is being driven by the realization that new kinds of technologies incubated in the Big 10 no longer need to be limited to use by only the largest companies. Entrepreneurs have come up with solutions and technologies to extend these capabilities to the Global 2000. The second trend currently driving innovation for the enterprise is the opportunity that has been created in the cloud. Cloud related infrastructure and application technologies have renewed a focus on innovating for the enterprise.

Sanjeev: I read in a recent paper you wrote that startups in social and cloud technologies don’t need the kind of capital they needed in the past? Did I understand that correctly?

Promod: Overall, the cost of getting an application up and running has come down, as well as the speed at which you can do it. The cost of prototyping an app has come down, but the cost of sales hasn’t dropped. If the technology isn’t viral (like social), you still have the cost of sales and marketing. The cost for an entrepreneur to reach C-level decision makers remains about the same. They still need to deploy the necessary lead generation and B-to-B marketing and business development tactics required to sell into the Fortune 500 or the Global 2000.

Sanjeev: What are your views on super angel funds? In my work, I work with a lot of angel investors. Do you think Angels and Super Angels add value to start-ups?

Promod: I see the role of angel and super angels as seeding innovation. They are good for entrepreneurs in the beginning to help get an idea off the ground. Sharp entrepreneurs understand that eventually they will need to build a sales force. This is the point at which they realize they need all the help they can get. This is when they are looking for investors who can write larger checks and people who have extensive connections in the enterprise space. These are investors who can put $10- $20 million into the company over several years, which is how long it might take to build a business and allow it to scale to a point where it can achieve a reasonable exit. VCs can help recruit talent and make contacts with larger strategic entities. The right amount of backing is also important to prospective customers who want to know their technology provider has deep pockets and will be around to serve them for the next several years.

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